“Overwatch has long explored and celebrated real-life cultures from around the world, which you can see in our roster of heroes from Korea, Japan, and China. We’re excited to share we’re diving into Asian Mythology as the theme for season three! This season features some of our most unique skins to date, and a few have some fun lore connections we think players will love.”
- Taken from the Blizzard Developer Blog.
We have 6 heroes from Asia minimum; D.Va (SKR), Genji (JPN), Hanzo (JPN), Kiriko (JPN), Mei (CHN) and Symmetra (IND) You could also throw in Zenyatta and possibly Rammatra(?), but let’s stick to humans. So considering all this, why is it only one of the Asian heroes for an Asian Mythology theme gets a skin?
Listen I ain’t saying non-asian heroes can’t also have skins based on the theme, but it’s like having having a Black History Month theme and then having mostly white heroes represent it. This would usually be seen as cultural appropriation, and it’s kinda the same with this mythology event.
Closing thoughts - Of course it’s just a game, and we’ve seen plenty of times in other events, they are just skins regardless of who wears them. It’s just disappointing this was a wasted opportunity to showcase the most suitable heroes for the theme, especially when Devs specially said in their blog they “celebrate it”. Clearly not this time…